Croatian star Modric aiming to show why he's being courted by both Chelsea and Arsenal

Last updated at 12:06 21 November 2007

Of all the reasons to believe that Croatia's challenge to England's Euro 2008 ambitions tonight will prove rather more convincing than Slaven Bilic's collapse under a Laurent Blanc half-slap, the most ominous one was last seen scuttling through Wembley's bowels. It seemed young, gifted and terrified.

Poor old Luka Modric had clearly been warned that Her Majesty's press might want to interrogate him on whether he fancied moving to Arsenal more than Chelsea, or vice-versa, and he had almost reached the sanctuary of the team bus after last night's training session when he was collared. A quick word, Luka? He offered two - "No! no! ..." before disappearing with a look of horror.

So it was left to his mates to tell us whether this fragile-looking little creature was as good as he was cracked up.

"You'll see tomorrow if you haven't see already," said Niko Kranjcar, somehow making it sound like a threat. "He's the new superstar of Croatian football and I really hope he's going to join us in England."

Us? You mean at Portsmouth? "No," said the Pompey favourite. "He's aiming higher."

Roman Abramovich, when not sulking about Russia's predicament, has apparently been doing everything to woo Modric's club Dynamo Zagreb, including sending his private jet to bring over the club chairman, Zdravko Mamic, to London for talks.

Suggestions of a £20-to-30million price tag might have deterred Arsenal if his creativity, nimbleness and adroit passing, not to mention a telepathic on-field understanding with team-mate Eduardo da Silva, didn't make him simply perfect for Arsene Wenger.

Yet England don't need to worry where this 22-year-old is going yet, only where he might be sending us. Seeing Modric, all 5ft 6in and a dripping-wet 10 stone of him, skating around in Wembley's driving rain, reminded you of the Leo Messi makeover.

That's when a small, lank haired figure walks out slightly slumped on to a training pitch and then explodes into jack-in-the-box magician once a ball is presented.

So even if Wembley's dodgy pitch, still scarred from being the NFL's land of the giants for a day, does offer the prospect of a tentative game of chess on ice which coach Bilic talked about after last night's session, you could still see from the skating Modric's balance and skill why Eduardo, who's played in front of him since they were kids, calls him "our grandmaster".

Maybe England should worry about their end game then. For Modric, brought up in an impoverished family during the Balkans conflict and having survived the rough and tumble of the Bosnian league even when his detractors thought he'd be too slight, clearly has bottle to go with the brilliance and the brain.

Like Thierry Henry and Johan Cruyff, he wears the 14; in Croatia, they think that fact doesn't flatter him.

Yet can Modric and his team-mates really rouse themselves sufficiently tonight for one historic win when it's easy to be persuaded that, with their qualification assured despite a physically draining defeat in a Macedonian quagmire, they'd now settle for an honourable draw? Bilic and Kranjcar do a convincing job in offering reasons why England cannot bank on such a luxury.

"We're keen to show what we can do because we still don't think we get enough respect in the world for the quality of our team," said Kranjcar, reminding us that Saturday had been the only loss in Bilic's 15-game reign. "We do have a quality side and we want to show it on the big stage."

They may well have sensed even more disrespect today, too, if they'd read the love letter from their favourite referee - you know, the one who'd let them have three yellow cards before they got sent off.

"These cynical players are prepared to dive, block, contest every decision, pressure the referee with snarling back-chat, pecking away at an official to undermine his confidence," wrote Graham Poll.

"They will stop an opponent in full flight, without concern about the punishment, then swarm towards the referee to contest the decision."

More than that, added Poll, "the masters of the dark arts" had taken their example from Bilic's character, which he'd shown with that infamous piece of swan-diving which led to France's Blanc being sent off in the 1998 World Cup semi.

Er, thanks, Graham. If this wasn't guaranteed to wind up Bilic over his cornflakes and motivate his side, what was?

Since he'd spent all week persuading us that Croatia would be models of "fair play" at Wembley in giving 100 per cent effort to appease Russia - just as Israel had appeased England - the former West Ham man was hardly going to take kindly to being painted as football's Darth Vader.

"I love English football, I lived here for five years and I love England but I'm the manager of as proud a country as yours," he said last night. "I'm so proud to be Croatian because we're sitting on top of a group ahead of two great football nations - Russia, who are hoping, and England, who are shaking."

By the glint in his eye, you sensed this Anglophile would still quite enjoy finishing the job by shaking English football rigid. Only not by employing the dark arts. Modric's smart arts are more potent.